Bridgeport Hospital offers breastfeeding initiatives

Ariane Moreira, of Stratford, nurses her son James in the Womens Care Center at Bridgeport Hospital, in Bridgeport, Conn. June 22, 2017.

Ariane Moreira, of Stratford, nurses her son James in the Womens Care Center at Bridgeport Hospital, in Bridgeport, Conn. June 22, 2017.

Photo: Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media

Photo: Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media

Image
1of/4

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 4

Ariane Moreira, of Stratford, nurses her son James in the Womens Care Center at Bridgeport Hospital, in Bridgeport, Conn. June 22, 2017.

Ariane Moreira, of Stratford, nurses her son James in the Womens Care Center at Bridgeport Hospital, in Bridgeport, Conn. June 22, 2017.

Photo: Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media

Bridgeport Hospital offers breastfeeding initiatives

1 / 4

Back to Gallery

As the mother of premature twins, Kate Mayone, of Shelton, faced some hurdles getting her children to breastfeed.

She said, after giving birth to her daughters at Bridgeport Hospital in 2015, her support varied depended on which doctors or nurses she saw on a certain day. Some were pro-breastfeeding, while others emphasized the importance of weight gain, and pushed supplementing with formula.

Ultimately, she was able to successfully breastfeed her children, with the help of the hospital’s lactation specialists but “it took a lot of work to get there.”

So Mayone, 35, was happy to hear that the hospital is taking a close look at improving community outreach to increase breastfeeding rates among women who give birth there.

Bridgeport Hospital is looking to implement two initiatives at the hospital in the near future.

One is called couplet care, and targets all new moms at the hospital. It involves a single nurse caring for mother and baby, as opposed to an individual nurse for each. The other initiative is a peer counseling program geared specifically at the Hispanic community — a group of women who hospital staff said are typically reluctant to start breastfeeding until they get home.

Mayone said both ideas sound great. She particularly thinks the couplet care would have benefited her. “I definitely think it would help to have someone who looks at you as a mom and baby unit,” she said. “It makes the most sense.”

Moving the numbers

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants be exclusively breastfed for the first six months, with continued breastfeeding alongside some solid foods until they are at least a year old. Nationwide, about 81 percent of new moms start out breastfeeding. Nearly 52 percent are still breastfeeding at six months and about a third are breastfeeding at a year.

Promoting breastfeeding has long been a goal at Bridgeport Hospital said Dr. Harris Jacobs, the hospital’s chairman of pediatrics.

However, he said the hospital’s rate of moms who exclusively breastfeed is in the 30 percent range — a vast improvement from the rate of 1 to 2 percent the hospital saw a few years ago, but still far off from where they want to be.

“We haven’t been able to move much further,” he said, which is why they are working to improve their outreach.

Offering support

Two of the hospital’s lactation specialists said, though emphasis on breastfeeding has increased, obstacles still exist. Some of these are cultural, as with the issues they are seeing with some moms in the Hispanic community.

Spanish-speaking Hispanic mothers had the highest rate of initiating and maintaining breastfeeding, followed by English-speaking Hispanic mothers, according to a study released by the American Academy of Pediatrics last year.

The problem is that many of these moms don’t want to start breastfeeding until they get home, said Liz Seaman, a lactation specialist and maternal child health educator at Bridgeport Hospital. “When they get home, they do great,” she said.

However, before then, Seaman said, this group of moms is more likely to believe that they aren’t producing enough milk, or that the colostrum (the first milk produced by new mothers) isn’t healthy for their baby, or other myths.

The first few days are often critical for mothers and babies. The colostrum, or initial milk, that the mother’s body makes is essential in boosting the baby’s immunity. Seaman and fellow lactation specialist and maternal child health educator Susan Marsh said they’ve been working on trying to break misconceptions about breastfeeding among Hispanic mothers, but haven’t had much luck.

That’s why they would like to offer peer counselors — specifically, women of Hispanic descent who speak Spanish — to help offer education and support, ideally before the baby is born. “The thought is, if they get the information from someone in their own culture, it’s more effective than getting it from us,” Seaman said.

Couplet care, meanwhile, has been shown to be an effective model for most new moms, Marsh said.

“Research shows it can help with increasing the breastfeed rate,” by treating mom and baby as a single unit, she said.

Neither measure is offered yet. Jacobs said, but the hospital is in the process of getting grant funding for the peer counselor. And he, Seaman and Marsh said couplet care could be offered by mid-fall.

The goal is to continue pushing the hospital’s breastfeeding rates higher, they said. However, Jacobs pointed out that the aim is to do this without stigmatizing mothers who are unable to breastfeed for one reason or another.

“One thing we’re extremely careful about is not making anybody feel guilty if they can’t do it,” he said.